Thursday 24th January 2019
“Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.” — Barbara Jordan
All day today I have felt like having a nap. I woke up about 7.50am with the rest of the house, and I felt like a nap. Jayne and I drove the kids the half mile round trip to school, and when I got back I felt like a nap. I lazed around for a while, had some breakfast, and felt like a nap. You probably get the gist of it by now.
I drove the 0.1 mile trip to my dad’s house to pick some things up, and then home again. Tired. I had some lunch a while after midday, and then I decided it was nap time. I nodded off after 3pm, and maybe got 30 mins before the kids arrived home, then 2 delivery men ringing the doorbell. The noise made it impossible to sleep any more.
I came down and milled around with the kids for a while, made some glow in the dark gloop with Parker which he’s been dying to do, then made some tea for us while Jayne and Luke went out. Guess what, 6.30pm, curled up on the sofa with my eyes closed for 45 mins. Woke up, felt like a nap. And so on. Early night tonight ahead of chemo day tomorrow. I’ve got to be at The Christie for 9am so it’ll be a fairly early get up.
It was my last Filgrastim injection today, which I believe is still the source of me feeling so run down, so hopefully I’ll perk up. My appetite is still quite low, but I’m doing my best to eat regardless. Other than this tiredness, I feel pretty normal.
I forgot to share my blood results yesterday. Last Friday, my Neutrophil level was 0.1 and the Dr said they want to see a minimum of 1. This left me dangerously vulnerable to infections. The daily injections have been making my bone marrow do it’s job and produce more (and making my bones ache.) Yesterday, my blood results were looking for a Neutrophil count of between 2 and 7.5 as normal. My count was 31.7 !! I’m not sure how quickly that will decline with no more injections due and more chemo, but thats good news for now.
I continue to be blown away by the generosity I’ve seen on my JustGiving page, thanks again to everyone that has contributed. A special thanks to my old colleagues in the Fraud team. It’s about 4 and a half years since I worked there but they put in a sizeable donation as a collective which caught me massively and pleasantly by surprise. It’s at over £900 now, not bad considering I sold my hair off at £100 originally !
Final thing on the hair, I seriously considered dyeing it pink to add to the ridicule and further entertain you all, but this morning it was coming out at a faster rate of knots. I think if I try to dye it, it’ll just come out and I’ll end up with a thin and patchy mess in need of a full shave. I scratch my face, and my beard hair falls out !
I’ll keep it as is for now and happily tell the story of my awesome network of friends and family who have given so generously for a worthy cause. I’ll be massively proud to tell that story to any of the Dr’s or Nurses I come across tomorrow that are happy to listen.
I’m in tomorrow for a chat with the Dr and a shot of Bleomycin, then I need to get as much rest as possible until Monday when cycle 2 begins. I started Cycle 1 at 100% fitness/health. I won’t be starting cycle 2 at 100%, but I can try to get as close to 100% between now and Monday as is possible.
Phil's BEP Chemo Journey 